Monday, 23 November 2009

ULTRAVIOLET now available for free in the UK

The superb 1998 mini-series Ultravioletis now available on YouTube via Channel 4 On-Demand. I haven't seen if it works for people outside the UK yet, but certainly those in the UK looking for an excellent SFF show, this is definitely one to catch.

The series stars Jack Davenport (Commander Norrington from the Pirates of the Carribean movies), Idris Elba (Stringer Bell from The Wire) and Stephen Moyer (Bill from True Blood) and depicts a clandestine war between a secretive government organisation and vampires on the streets of Britain. The series goes to significant lengths to downplay the sillier parts of the myth, with greater attention paid to the scientific side of the concept. The series is notable for its fairly grim tone and the extreme ambiguity of the characters, with it not being entirely clear which side is in the 'right', with the vampires claiming to have suffered religious persecution for centuries for just being different whilst the agency claims that vampires are evil 'leeches'. Of course, the agency is also funded by the Vatican...

It's a clever and tremendously well-written and well-acted show, and for this price is quite impossible to miss.